Hundreds of thousands of independent food retailers,
wholesalers, trucking companies and food distributors have a year
and a half before they must comply with the new FDA rule on record
keeping. Stemming from the 2002 Bioterrorism Act, the rule requires
companies in the food distribution chain to obtain and record
information on products received from suppliers and sold to
customers.

Food retailers with 10 or more full-time employees must collect
incoming data, which must be kept on the premises for six months to
two years, depending on the perishability of the food. (Retailers
with fewer than 10 employees are exempt.) Moreover--and this is the
tricky part--food manufacturers must be able to link incoming
ingredients with outgoing products. The FDA hasn't said how
this should be done, but at a minimum, food manufacturers will
probably have to print lot numbers or other identifying marks on
outgoing products. The requirements go into effect on December 9,
2006.

While the FDA estimates compliance will cost companies only
about $1,000 a year, another rule brewing at the Department of
Justice could cost small businesses considerably more. The
department's proposed revisions to the Americans with
Disabilities Act would force companies to carry out costly
construction projects.

The act's design standards specify what areas of a building,
for example, must have wheelchair access, and the technical
requirements for that access. Potential changes to those standards
adopted last July by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers
Compliance Board include requiring companies to make employee-only
areas wheelchair accessible even if there are no employees in
wheelchairs, and upping the number of public entrances which must
be wheelchair accessible from the current requirement of 50 percent
to 60 percent. The DOJ is at the start of encoding these guidelines
into a final rule.

Stephen Barlas is a freelance business reporter who covers
the Washington beat for 15 magazines.